


serenade, burn, fade

by anupturnedboat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Concerts, Dating, Friendship/Love, Gen, Post-Canon, Requited Unrequited Love, Stydia, Things Go Wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7871914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a fraction of a second they are not in this car.  They are in the alternate universe where everything goes exactly according to plan.  Where they are home and safe and this thing between them is actually going to happen.</p><p>Post 5B</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This is uncharted territory, the two of them, this far from home, with music thumping off the walls and floors into their bones. No werewolves, or blood, or panic. No pack. Just this charged swaying rhythm between them in the heat of this small, loud room.

There is a vague layer of smoke hanging from the rafters, and a sea of people who don’t know what they are or where they are from.  Who jostle against them, fill the air with laughter, and lightness, and life (so normal it makes him ache).

It makes him want to take her hand, to pull her close, to rest his hands on her hips, and sing all the words to all the songs into her hair.

But he swallows that impulse down because she hasn’t said anything. And he hasn’t said anything. And he knows he’s supposed to make a move. But there is only one shot to get it right, and conversely a million ways to lose Lydia Martin.

And then the lights go down, and the crowd pushes forward with anticipation, Lydia’s arm brushes against his and in the dark he can feel her watching him. And he wonders nownownownow?

Then the band starts playing, and he can’t help his restless feet and the messy beat in his veins.

It feels good.  Everything about tonight feels good.  And it has been so long since anything felt like this. He doesn’t want to mess it up by spilling out of his own skin like a fool and telling Lydia Martin that he loves her, has loved her all this time, and that he doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to stop.

  
Lydia is sipping wine out of a plastic cup, because she has a good fake I.D. and he is lame son of a sheriff who doesn’t.  She is so so pretty in the lilac and gold lights that he doesn’t really care about being an I.D.less loser.

He likes poppy, punky, wear your heart on your sleeve songs (and she’s intricate chord progressions and verses like poetry that you have to decode to understand) which in retrospect is kind of embarrassing. A _nd why didn’t he think of that before telling her this is his favorite band and insisting they drive all the way to this show?_

He can feel a burning blush during certain parts of certain songs and wonders if Lydia is reading between the lines, deciphering his favorite band's songs into the stories of his heart.

She bumps him with her hip because of course, she is. And her smile is bright and open, and suddenly, despite being mortified, he is so glad they came all this way.  
***  
Everyone is sweaty, and the night air sticky on his skin.  But Lydia is holding his hand as the crowd surges around them. They’re taking the walk back to the parking lot slow, and he is completely ok with that because everything feels like it is new again.  Like there are no bad things in the shadows waiting to pounce. And he never wants this feeling to end.

He’s got that last song stuck in head ( _she’s been running through my dreams_ ), and maybe he’ll sing her a verse, just to see.

But before he can get one note out, she stops moving, tugs his hand hard.  They’re at a red light, and she steps up on the tips of her toes, pulls down, and kisses the words right off his tongue.   _That song will never get unstuck now._

And then as fast as it happens, the light turns green, and they cross the street with the last of the dwindling crowd.

He is putting his key in the lock, with a stupid grin he can’t quite stop, when it starts to rain.

At first, he thinks he is imagining it, but then, there are droplets that look like ink blots on his sleeves, and down the front of his white t-shirt. The sky is dusky purple, not pretty like violet twilight, but bruised and ugly and unnatural, _and fuck, it’s some kind of supernatural rain._

He looks over at Lydia whose looking at the inky splotches forming on her skirt and is about to say something about the apocalypse following them all the way from Beacon Hills, when everything goes to a familiar black, and the taste of blood fills his mouth.  
***  
He comes to thinking about calling Scott for help, even though he’s more than an hour away visiting his dad for the weekend, and nursing his broken heart, _which if Stiles being honest –_

But when he opens his eyes he’s in the back of a car with darkened windows and his head is throbbing. No phone to call for help.  It’s easy to panic; he is intimately acquainted with that emotion, but from experience, he knows it generally gets you nowhere.  Instead, he tries to breathe, to relax, and to right himself. Something sharp instantly cuts into his wrists.

He can’t stop the groan that escapes, and falls back on his side.

There is a closed window separating the back of the car from the front.  From this angle, he can’t see shit. Lydia is in the seat next to him with wide, terrified eyes, her arms are behind her back like his, her bare ankles cinched.  There is a gash above her eyebrow and blood crusted down the side of her face.  She shakes her head at him in warning, and he stops moving.

He’s read about things like this, in Indonesia where it rains red, a harbinger for bad things to come.  He seriously hopes frogs raining down aren’t next because he doesn’t think he can take the sound of their squishy bodies slapping against the hood of this car right now.

“Are you hurt?” he manages to rasp out, his throat sore.

She shakes her head.  “Been worse.”

That makes him grimace because actually they both have.  
   
***  
He finally manages to get himself upright and is pressed up as close to Lydia as he can be.  His hands are pulled painfully behind his back, but he’s working his fingers through the knots at her wrists.  If he can just get one of her hands free, maybe they can work some kind of plan that gets them home in one piece.

But the knots just won’t come undone, and he feels panic skittering up his throat. Why is it always like this; every moment that could be good and normal trampled and twisted by the things that go bump in the night?  And, really, he’s only got himself to blame.  He’s the one who dragged Scott into the woods all those nights ago. He’s the reason Allison is dead, and Lydia has been more traumatized than any person ever should be. 

“Stiles,” she hisses, it’s no use.” He knows she can’t read his thoughts, but maybe sometimes she can. 

He forces the buzzing fear and anxiety out of his head.

“No, I can do it.”

He can.  Because this is what he does, for all the things he’s done wrong.  All the ways he hasn’t been the hero.  He does this. He figures it out.  He gets them out of this mess.  He gets her home safe.  He swallows the trauma, the stress, the terror.  He moves forward. 

His fingers cramp, but he keeps tugging, pinching, pulling.

The car comes to a sudden gravely stop, and there is a brief pause before they hear car doors open and close.

Lydia pushes against him, immobilizes his hand between her and the seat. “I love you,” she whispers against his cheek.

For a fraction of a second, they are not in this car.  They are in the alternate universe where everything goes exactly according to plan.  Where they are home and safe and this thing between them is actually going to happen.  His favorite song is on the radio, and Lydia’s hair is down, and she’s got one of those rare open smiles that make his heart ache for reasons he doesn’t quite understand.

“No. Nope. No,” he says, her breath in his face, his tired fingers resting against her wrists. 

“No?” she hisses incredulously.

“No. Because I have dibs.”

“You can’t have dibs on saying something like that,” she says in a rush, her voice high and tight and scared because they can hear talking and footsteps and time is running short.

“Yes, you can. And I do,” he says frantically trying again at the knots. “I was going to say it tonight, but I didn’t know if the time was right, and I didn’t want to ruin things.  And then this happened, and I didn’t want to say it and have you think I was only saying it because we were going to die. Because the truth is, I have loved you for close to forever so - Wait, is this banshee intuition?  Are we going to die or-”

He can tell he’s hit a mark, by the way her mouth opens and closes, and she can’t look him in the eye.

“Stiles, I think something bad is going to happen, “she finally says, measured and slow, _and sure._ It makes him go cold, and like always he is torn between terrified and angry at his shit luck.

“Stiles! Focus, just listen.  I need to – I couldn’t not say it this time. How I feel.  Just in case.”

There is still the taste of blood in his mouth, and his brain is scattered.  Her words bounce around in his head, refusing to settle. Because no. He can’t handle any more bad things happening. Not when he is so close to something good.  Something he had stopping daring to hope for.

“Well I am not going to say it back,” he snaps without any real bite.  Because fuck, this is not how it’s supposed to go.

She swallows hard.

“Not until we are home,” he clarifies pressing a kiss into her cheek. “Just don’t change your-  
  
 “ _mind_ ,” he was going to say, before the door is yanked open and hands, parched and skeletal and reeking of something old pull him from the car.  
He pushes against them using his knees for leverage, but there is no stopping the oily rag that covers his face.  All he sees are figures, dark mutant scarecrows blotting out the moon. Lydia’s screaming, and the windows are shattering around them, and then it blissfully all goes dark.  
***  
_How to do wolves signal their location to the rest of the pack?_

He knows the answer.  He’s heard this once before. The room was white, and there was a buzzing in his skull. He couldn’t figure out the knots that time either.

 _They howl_ he remembers Scott answering (and that it worked then). When he opens his eyes, Lydia is not there.  Instead, it is dark and dank, and there are roots growing haphazardly around him. 


	2. Chapter 2

It takes him all of five seconds to process the fact that this is bad.  Really bad, and the fact that he’s claustrophobic as fuck isn’t helping.

And maybe it’s anxiety that is making breathing hard, but he suspects it is a lack of oxygen.  His heart is pounding an erratic rhythm, and his head is full of those squiggly panic filled thoughts that feel like drowning.

There is a nasty, insistent voice in his head (it makes him shudder, because, oh, it sounds like that _thing_ ), that is saying: _stop fighting, let go, not scary - actually kind of peaceful._

His words in a thousand-year-old demons voice and his mouth tastes like dirty bandages.

And the truth is it would be easy to give up. There would still be bad guys, and there would still be good guys to stop them.  No matter what happened to him, Scott would still hold the world on his shoulders, and Lydia would continue to piece things together. The others would fight, and live and make sure Beacon Hills didn’t spontaneously combust. He’s the weak link, the guy who makes all the big mistakes. He’s the one that let that thing in (lets it stay). And they would all survive (and maybe be better off) without him.

And if he’s going to die, he’s going to be selfish.  He’s going to go out regretting that he’s never going to know what would have been. How that one perfect day would have felt: _the windows rolled down, his favorite song on the radio, and Lydia-_

His head scrambles, because – Lydia.  She had been with him, and now she is not, and maybe it’s her those things were after, and now she is in danger somewhere.  And all this self-pity isn’t going to help find her. Fuck.

He fights the tightness in his chest, takes gulps of air and wriggles his wrists viciously against the knots.

_What’s harder to catch the faster you run Stilesss?_

His heart stutters and stops.  Why is it always that voice in his head when things are shitty?

But Lydia - he has to find Lydia.  “That’s an easy one,” he huffs. “Your breath, you asshole,” he grumbles, and the voice thankfully slithers away to that awful spot in his subconscious where it lives.

He’s pretty sure there is some kind of tear in his right shoulder, there is a throbbing reverberation of pain whenever every time he tugs on the knots, but he finally manages to free one hand and removes the binds at his ankles.

***

The air around him is dank and hard to breathe. It is the worst kind of dark, where you can see just enough to imagine what terrifying things are waiting in the shadows.

There is no way out. No Lydia, no Scott - no hope.

His mind is spinning – and coming up empty.  There is pressure building up behind his eyes, and air backing up in his throat.  Maybe this is the way it ends after all.

_But Lydia –_

He forces time to stop, or at least his brain to slow down enough to stop freaking out.  He’s been worse off and lived to tell the tale so-

_So do it.  Figure it out.  You’re always the one that figures it out._

He blinks hard. That was before, before he knew what loving Lydia Martin was really like.  And even then, she had a way of making sense of the chaos in his head.  Made him feel like he was going to be the hero, was going to make it out just fine. 

And so he will.  Because he doesn’t want just to know what loving Lydia is like, he wants to do it. Now, and tomorrow and for the rest of forever.  

He finally gets his breathing under control, uses his hands to feel his way around the dark.  The roots growing around him hum like wires, and he snatches his hand away with a disgusted hiss.

Gingerly he lets his fingers explore the space around them; the earth is soft and crumbly and gives way easily. 

Between two particularly gnarled livewire roots, there is a pin point of grayish light.  He’s on his knees, and sweat drips down his back as he digs away at the earth, towards the grayish light that is quickly (and too easily) growing larger and larger.

Dirt falls on his face, in his hair, and he digs, because if there is a way out, a way to Lydia he is going to find it.

He carves a hole that is not big enough to climb through, but he shimmies his head and one shoulder through anyway. There is only gray fog that looks like static and some kind of sound, something familiar, but he can’t quite make it out.

He pushes through the too small opening, dirt falling in on him, down his shirt and in his shoes.  He tastes it in his mouth and gags. 

His hands scrabble on the other side, looking for purchase but there is only gray fog, and then something cold and smooth under his palms.

He gets to his feet and forces himself to walk through the gray nothing in front of him. 

   
*****  
He’s been in a lot of waiting rooms.  The last time was the night they broke Lydia out of that hell hole. Adrenaline still running through his veins, his heart full of hope, and relief and love so deep he didn’t know what to do with it

This waiting room is nothing like that.

His shoes squeak on the linoleum, but no one notices him. 

There is a woman, her chin drawn to her chest, her hair hanging limply.

Next to her is a teenage girl in a cheerleading skirt, her hair in a high ponytail.  She’d be comatose except for a small movement of her hand, a finger running up and down what looks like a pager.

And what the fuck is this place?

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as one thing and morphed into something else. Not sure where it is going yet.


End file.
